


Peaceable Kingdom

by magelette



Category: Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 03:52:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2798549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magelette/pseuds/magelette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coll had been perfectly happy in his semi-retirement, farming his peaceable kingdom. Then Dallben came home from the wars, with a baby in his arms...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peaceable Kingdom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Suzelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzelle/gifts).



Coll stared at the squirming bundle in Dallben’s arms. He was familiar with young things; he’d raised Hen Wen up from an orphaned piglet, after all, and his farm, as overtaken as it was by Dallben these days, still had no lack for baby animals. But a baby animal was one thing. The squawking creature that Dallben carried at arm’s length was another entirely.

“I know you meant well, Dallben, and that you saved the ones you could, but bringing a baby here…”

Coll son of Collfrewr had been a fighter once, and he had been grateful that Dallben had not called him up to fight again in this last war. Gwydion, wearing that slightly sad, slightly sardonic look on his long, wolf-like face, still mentioned the songs sung of Coll in the north whenever they met. Coll didn’t travel north anymore, so his reputation mattered little to him. All that mattered was his small plot of land and Hen, his gift of retirement to himself from a life too full of wild adventuring.

He loved his small bit of earth. He wasn’t the land’s owner, he was merely its caretaker. He loved his vegetable plot, his apple orchard, his ramshackle little cottage that had become castle enough for Dallben. He loved his peace and quiet, especially after too many years spent rootless, weary-footed and without a hearth of his own. Dallben, a powerful enchanter and still at the call of the sons of Don, came and went as he pleased – or didn’t please, if the rumors that Coll had heard about this past strife had been true. Coll knew that Dallben would return eventually, and the two of them would settle into their same routine again. But he had never expected this weary-eyed, heavy-hearted Dallben, cradling a swaddled baby in his arms.

Coll had been born to the battlefield and had brought up following at his father’s heels, fighting and fleeing from cantrev to cantrev. His mother Anwyn, a farmer in her own right, had become an exile because of petty fights between various sons of Don. While fighting had been part of Coll’s life since before he could remember, he had longed to hang up his leather fighting cap and turn his sword into plow-iron. It seemed fitting to till the earth with a weapon that had once reaped so much blood and sorrow. Now, at least, he could sow peace along with his regret.

But farming and his own self-inflicted exile from the world had never included a child at his side. Dallben was puckish and peevish enough a wife for anyone, for all the power the old enchanter exuded. Coll was happy with his choice of housemate, but there were times when he wished for a simpler age, an age before he’d known his favorite sow was one of the greatest oracles ever born. Coll’s world had just righted itself again and he had seen the beginnings of peaceful harvest on the horizon. No one had come looking for the great hero Coll in nearly two years. And now…

“Were there no other survivors?” Coll flushed when he heard the petulant whine in his own voice. “I meant, was this poor babe the only one? And there’s no clue about to whom he might belong?” He almost asked about The Book of Three, but thought better of it. Dallben had once promised him a boon – foreknowledge of whatever Coll wanted, read straight from the book itself. Coll would rather place his faith in more common-place magic, like the turning of the seasons and the always-reliable fall of the rain and snow. He had seen what reliance on magic wrought in Arawn’s stronghold. 

“This boy was the only survivor,” Dallben said carefully. Dallben doubtlessly knew more, especially since Coll could almost feel the aura of power radiating off the Book of Three that the enchanter carried in his pack. Coll didn’t like the book. Dallben himself knew that Coll didn’t like the book, but the book, and Dallben’s presence, afforded Coll a peace that he couldn’t maintain. Not with an oracular pig who was in constant danger of being kidnapped – again – by Arawn. “Gwydion offered to foster the child, but I thought that Caer Dallben would be a better home for him.” 

Dallben rarely invoked his foreknowledge, or his power, to get his way. In that way, Dallben was an ideal housemate, for an occasionally grouchy old man. There was something that Dallben wasn’t saying here. Coll could almost read the destiny written on the baby, for all the words that Dallben wasn’t saying.

And now Dallben himself stood uneasily, cradling the bundle of baby as if the bundle would shatter at any moment. Coll had often wondered if Dallben had ever been young enough to consider a family, much less having been a small boy himself. Coll sighed, then reached for the squawking, squirming, and now stinky bundle with his capable hands. Babies were just as smart as pigs. If Hen could learn to use a corner of her pen as privy, so could a small child…

The filthy wrappings fell away to reveal a thatch of dark hair on top of a round, red face. Coll’s own hair had been that dark once, before the stresses of war had caused it all to fall out. The moment Coll cradled the small boy in his arms, the boy stopped squawking and opened his eyes, a surprisingly bright blue. Those eyes reminded him of his mother’s eyes, and his mother’s wish to have a little space to raise a family. Well, Coll had the space. And if his parents had managed to raise him to farm – and occasionally fight – for the side of good, perhaps a pair of old, balding bachelors could do the same for this youngster.

“We have a cow,” Coll began doubtfully, trying to assess the babe’s age by his size and heft. The boy was alert, easily following the fluttering movements of Coll’s free hand with his eyes. The baby grabbed at Coll’s hand and immediately shoved it into his mouth. Coll could feel sharp pricks on his finger, surrounded by swollen and feverish gums. “Near a year perhaps? My mam mentioned feeding a babe on bread soaked in milk if the mother wasn’t able, unless your enchanter’s powers can defy nature.” 

Dallben snorted, his sole response.

“Does your book name him?” Coll asked, holding the lad up to get a better look at him. He looked strong and hearty, for all his possession of Coll’s forefinger in his mouth. “Needs a bath. Might clean up as handsome as Hen Wen when we’re done.” Hen, hearing her name, let out an inquisitive grunt. Coll knelt near Hen’s pen, holding up the baby for Hen to see. “What do you think, love? This is the newest member of our family.”

Brown eyes met blue, and Coll wondered if it wasn’t love at first sight. Well, the boy would have a foster-mother then, even if she was an oracular swine. Then again, maybe an oracular swine was the best sort of mam.

“Taran,” Coll said softly. “My taid – my mother’s father – was named Taran. Taran was a farmer from Glyn Dallwyr and he lost the family’s holding in one of those petty wars. I never knew him, but my mam spoke so proudly of her father, more so for his ability to farm than his ability to fight.”

“Taran of Caer Dallben,” Dallben echoed, a slight smile on his wizened face. “It does have a nice ring to it.” His nose wrinkled. “Though not, perhaps, the same ring as a bath…”

Coll chuckled as Dallben made his way into the scullery, muttering about a tureen large enough to bathe a baby. 

Coll son of Collfrewr had once prevented the princes Arthur and Cei and Bedwyr from stealing the pigs of March son of Meirchyawn, their foster father. He had shaken for days, waiting for March to dismiss him for impropriety toward March’s own foster sons. Nothing, not even facing Arawn himself, had frightened Coll as much as the thought of March son of Meirchyawn’s anger. The pure trust and innocent love in Taran’s eyes put a similar fear into Coll’s heart, but somehow, the thought of raising this tiny child seemed more like a step toward redemption rather than a punishment. Taran would be one more reason for Coll to cling to the peace of his own little kingdom for as long as he could.


End file.
